India's Amazon of education? Careers360 readies online marketplace

Education magazine Careers360 recently raised funds from five angel investors to expand its counselling services and products and launch an education marketplace.

Private equity investor Ranjan Pai of the Manipal Group, Career Launcher’s Satya Narayanan, venture capitalist Mahesh Murthy of Pinstorm, and two financial investors have come together to fund the creation of ‘India’s largest education marketplace’. The investors will also mentor the company as it grows.

Firstbiz spoke to Careers360 founder Maheshwer Peri to learn about its future plans. Read edited excerpts below:

FB: What exactly is an education marketplace? What will be sold on the platform?

Peri: It is a platform where any approved vendor would be able to put up his services and products to be sold to students. The products and services will deal with aptitude texts, psychometric tests, coaching and test prep material, counselling products, language training, online certification courses etc.

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The education marketplace enables the students to assess, compare and purchase the best product at the best price.

Increasingly, there are more experts and companies creating material to help students take an informed decision. However, students don’t even get to know them. We will create a marketplace where such material could be accessed and benefits students and experts alike. This also leads to a price discovery that benefits the students and reduces the costs.

FB: Why did you decide to expand into educational products?

Peri:When we launched the print magazine, the vision was clearly to reach out to all audiences, across all platforms, in all markets using the same content. It is about leveraging same content for multiple audiences and hopefully multiple revenue streams.

The e-commerce platform is a way by which we allow the student to also execute a transaction by showing them where they can buy the products. We are closing the loop from information to advise to purchase.

FB: How will the recently raised funds help in your plans to become the Amazon of education?

Peri: This would help us seek more products, increase categories and develop new vendors. The idea is to create new technologies, increase the product catalogue - vertically and horizontally and create a servicing mechanism best suited for students. We are already in the process of recruiting a 25 member team to power the platform.

FB: Which stream/subject gets you the most customers?

Peri: The undergraduate stream has more customers followed by postgraduate streams. Within these, the professional courses have greater traction than formal education courses.

FB: What are the new products in the pipeline? Do you plan to tackle any new subjects in the future?

Peri: We will delve into every product that the students would be looking for. Our product curve will be completely in sync with students needs. This year, as a company, we will also focus on Study Abroad and non- professional courses.

FB: What are your growth plans/estimates for the next 2-3 years?

Peri: Our current revenue is close to Rs 10 crores with a 75 member team and we are a profitable company. We aim to earn 10 times our current revenues in 2018-19.

FB: What are your expectations from the budget, from an entrepreneur’s point of view?

Peri: More than entreprenuer, I am hoping that the cost of education is reduced. This may mean subsidizing, or grants for research projects and even further tax breaks on education loans. If education becomes affordable, everything will fall in place. We need to bring the payback time down to 18 months salary.

FB: Are you planning any collaborations?

Peri: We can’t discuss anything at this point.

Our ultimate objective is to ensure that every aspirant gets a career that he deserves. We want every student to make an informed choice. The objective is to optimize the choices, reduce costs and ensure that no student regrets a decision he has taken.

We aim to be the most comprehensive, complete, credible and hence largest in the domain.